English

Hyperbolicity and near hyperbolicity of quadratic forms over function fields of quadrics

Commutative Algebra 2017-10-10 v2

Abstract

Let pp and qq be anisotropic quadratic forms over a field FF of characteristic 2\neq 2, let ss be the unique non-negative integer such that 2s<dim(p)2s+12^s < \mathrm{dim}(p) \leq 2^{s+1}, and let kk denote the dimension of the anisotropic part of qq after scalar extension to the function field F(p)F(p) of pp. We conjecture that dim(q)\mathrm{dim}(q) must lie within kk of a multiple of 2s+12^{s+1}. This can be viewed as a direct generalization of Hoffmann's separation theorem. Among other cases, we prove that the conjecture is true if k<2s1k<2^{s-1}. When k=0k=0, this shows that any anisotropic form representing an element of the kernel of the natural restriction homomorphism W(F)W(F(p))W(F)\rightarrow W(F(p)) has dimension divisible by 2s+12^{s+1}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1609.07100,
  title  = {Hyperbolicity and near hyperbolicity of quadratic forms over function fields of quadrics},
  author = {Stephen Scully},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.07100},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

Re-written; main result improved